The present invention relates to signal range expansion converters and more particularly to a converter which scales different orders of magnitudes differently so that the lower orders of magnitude receive the most amplification.
When measuring signals having a broad range of values, conventional scaling by linearly compressing the entire range results in signals at the lower end of the range where system noise can exceed 10% of the desired signals value, making accurate measurements extremely difficult. When the linearly compressed signals are applied to an analog to digital (A/D) converter the offset voltage of the A/D converter can cause a portion of the lower end of the range to be lost.
In many applications a signal must be quickly measured so that the desired value, which is changing rapidly, can be captured and converted.
Logarithmic amplifiers can be used when signals with a large dynamic range are encountered to provide compression of the signal range. It is necessary to take the antilog of the output of the amplifier in order to obtain the natural number associated with the output of the scaled signal.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a converter for scaling a range of input signals which quickly captures and converts the value to be measured.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a converter for scaling a range of input signals, the output of which can be easily interpreted.